Redefined

What's happenin'

This is a general update on some things that have been happening behind the scenes with my art career. If you're not interested in hearing about this kind of stuff, feel free to stop reading now. Really, I don't mind a bit. However, I have to warn you that I've placed some spyware inside your computer and I'll know what you've done.

About a week ago, I wrote to the gallery director at a college 35 miles from my house and asked if she was accepting portfolios. Apparently she went out to my website and liked what she saw, because when I returned from taking down my solo show the next morning, I received an email from her asking if I was able to fill her gallery space myself or needed a second person to exhibit along with me. I ate lunch, then drove there to take another look at the gallery and ended up talking with the director. The result was an offer for another solo show, to begin at the end of September, 2009 and continuing through October. Do you know that "letdown" feeling that can happen after finishing a big project? I didn't get to wallow in it after taking down the Newman University show. Gee, I'm almost disappointed. I said almost.

My favorite gallery, Untitled[ArtSpace] in Oklahoma City, asked if I would curate a quilt exhibition for them. They even allowed me to put together my "dream" exhibit, which will be an invitational show of 20 artists whose work I most admire. A percentage of the artists also work in 3D like myself, which will help fill up the center of the 10,000 square foot gallery. There will be a catalog and workshops associated with this exhibit and the gallery is interested in travelling it after it finishes its run there. The dates for this exhibit will be July 10 to August 29, 2009. I'm going to be pretty busy around the end of June!

Tomorrow (Wednesday), I am leaving for the International Sculpture Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'll let you know how it went when I return. This is a leap into the unknown for me, but I've never been much of one to shy away from risky things. It's also time I made more contacts outside of the art quilt community and in the larger art world. I didn't make it into the Quilt National exhibit again this year and it may be just as well. I think it's time I acknowledged that my artwork doesn't fit there anymore, but I was hoping to get that particular notch on my belt before I moved on.

Unfortunately, there are no pictures with this post. I have some pictures of Picniced now that it's finished, but I already packed the camera and I forgot to download them first. I'm afraid you'll just have to wait. Big oops. Forgive me?

How I protect my artwork from damage

Right now, almost all my work is back in the house again, so I am going to spend a few days making storage cases for some of the more vulnerable and newer artworks. This practice started a few years ago, when I made a piece called Forest Floor. I realized it was going to get damaged and dusty, so I spent a lot of time making a custom storage case for it.
The light spot on top is where my cat barfed on it recently. Did I mention she was bulemic? I will probably make a vinyl outer cover to protect the case even better, but I guess I didn't do it fast enough. You can't see in these pictures, but there are a lot of handles sewn onto the case. It's so bulky that my short little arms have trouble carrying this piece without them. I also attached extra handles so I can hold onto the case in just the right places to make it easier to slide the artwork in and out. All the flaps close with Velcro.

The next two pictures show the custom storage case for Transformed. A pre-quilted and very colorful fabric is used for the outer case. I printed a picture of the piece plus my contact information on fabric and sewed it onto the flap for easy identification. Another piece I made around the same time, Triangulated, has a similar case.

Open the outer case and you will find the artwork's components.  The wood pieces are nestled safely and warmly in their own sweet and soft fleece fabric bags. Twill tape is sewed on the the flap area so the flaps can be tied down.

The round "roller" parts are simply placed in old pillowcases and rolled up. Someday, maybe I'll make something a little more customized, but I got lazy by this point in the construction.

My cat hasn't barfed on this case yet. I wonder what's holding her back?

Painting pickles and stitching tomato slices

I spent the last week processing a bunch of pears that a nice lady allowed me pick from her orchard. All in all, I probably canned about 100 jars of various jams, jellies, sauces, juice and preserves. If that wasn't enough, I also made 50 servings of chili from my homegrown tomatoes and green peppers. My feet are tired. My brain is fried. My tastebuds are happy.

All this food preparation is spilling over into my artwork, too. If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you may remember a piece called Portable Picnic. A collaborative project, it was originally shown at Untitled[ArtSpace] in Oklahoma City in January. Unfortunately, the other two artists in my group wanted their work back after the show was over. Go figure. I was left with a nice ground cover, cushions, tablerunners and napkins but the dishware, silverware and vase were gone. Never being one to let a little thing like that stop me, I decided to finish the picnic scene myself and exhibit it as a "new" artwork, called Picniced.

I finished the food this week and here's what it looks like. If you can't tell from the picture, I'm serving a bag of potato chips, a BLT sandwich and a dill pickle. The sandwich and chips bag are made entirely of fiber materials, but the pickle was created from a lightweight clay and painted with acrylic paints. The best part of this project is that I got to eat the food models as I went along.

Only one serving of food is shown here, but there are actually two, one for each of the two seats at the picnic. There used to be three servings, but I think my husband had them for lunch yesterday. I told them they had fiber in them and he must have misunderstood.

This is one of the actual plates I'll be using. The next step is to sand, stain and finish the wood so it looks a little darker and classier. I still haven't decided what to do about the drinks yet. If I create some fake soda cans. I'd better buy several real ones at the store for models so I have something to drink while I work.

I won't replace the original silverware since all I'm serving is finger food. Have you ever tried to eat potato chips with a knife and fork?

What's on the board?

Here's a better picture of Posted, the "bulletin board" in my solo exhibit. It looks so real that many people walked right past it, not realizing it was part of the exhibit. Even when they were standing close to it and I told them it was a quilt, bending the bottom upwards to show how flexible it was and how you could see the stitching on the back, some still asked if I used real cork to make it. Nope, it's all made from fabric.

I used a combination of thumb tacks, straight pins and push pins to hold the items onto the board. To protect the wall behind it, I covered the points with pierced earring backs. I am sooooo clever!

The real bulletin board for the university's art department had some pictures of art that had been cut out from magazines, so I added a picture that I had cut from a magazine, too. You can see "Alien Invasion" by one of my favorite artists, Pam RuBert, right under the Art Dept. sign.

The lime green poster in the lower left is the gallery's schedule for the 2008-2009 school year. If you look closely, you can see an arrow to my name, with the handwritten words "Is she related to Mary Werner, the gallery director?" and underneath, "No". This was my way to answer the obvious question, for people who know Mary.

The Art Dept. sign is attached with Velcro to make it removable. The next time I use the bulletin board, I can change the sign to suit the situation. Just to the right of it, I placed a fly (glued to a thumb tack) that looks like it's crawling across the surface of the cork. There are also a lot of extra tacks and pins in the board, to make it look like it's being well-used. You'll also see a fortune from a Chinese fortune cookie and some comic strips from my home bulletin board.

The white papers are fake notices. One is a "Roommate Wanted" sign, one supposedly has course additions for the Fall semester and the other is a For Sale sign for an Gauguin ($37 million OBO/ Moving out of state).

If you have been following my blog for a while, you may remember my blog contest. The three prizes are the blue hand dyed scarf, the artwork in the black oval mat and the round, red, beaded pin just above the scarf. These prizes will be sent to the winners when the exhibit is over.

Going solo

I had a wonderful time at the opening reception for my solo exhibit on Friday evening. Many people turned up with whom I wanted talk longer, but I didn't have the opportunity. Two hours goes pretty fast when you are having fun!

If you think we're friends but you didn't turn up, we may have to renegiotiate our relationship. The art may not have drawn you, but how could you resist free food and wine?

By coincidence, the gallery director is named Mary Werner. A man and wife with the last name of Werner were also there because he works at the university. To my surprise, another Jill M. Werner turned up with her husband and friends. She lives here in Wichita and we knew each other existed, but had never met. I had sent her an announcement postcard as a lark and she apparently couldn't resist meeting the other Jill M. Werner in town. The first three letters of our middle names are even the same. At one point, there were seven Werners standing in a circle talking and, with the exception of the married pairs, none of us were related. That kind of thing never happened to me when I was simply Jill Rumoshosky.

Splashed, which can be seen on the pedestal near the left wall, was most people's favorite piece. Another favorite was Posted, which can be seen on the right. It looks so much like a real cork board that many people were walking past it, thinking that it was a real cork board used by the university's art department. However, if they studied the items on the board, they soon realized that something was a little "off" and it was actually part of the exhibit. I added more bulletin board items after this picture was taken, so I'll take another before I do the gallery talk tomorrow and write a blog post about it.

Many thanks to the folks at Newman University for making this exhibition such a success!